City Center continues its second season of Encores! Off-Center with two July treats. On the first, there was a one-night-only performance of Randy Newman's Faust: The Concert. This 1995 musical has songs by Newman, and has previously been produced at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego and the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Newman himself played the devil, under the direction of Thomas Kail (In the Heights). Then comes the long-running 1982 revue, Pump Boys and Dinettes. Conceived, written and initially performed by John Foley, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk, Cass Morgan, John Schimmel and Jim Wann, the new cast will include Jordan Dean, Hunter Foster, Mamie Parris, Randy Redd, Katie Thompson, and Lorenzo Wolff. Lear deBessonet (On the Levee) directs, with Jeanine Tesori and Chris Fenwick serving — respectively — as the Off-Center artistic director and musical director. Pump Boys will be in for five performances, July 16–19. Ticket holders are also invited to pre-performance Lobby Projects related to the show. The July 16 program will feature the above-mentioned original cast member/authors.

For an evening of July jazz, head over to Birdland for John Pizzarelli and the Swing Seven. The renowned guitarist, vocalist, and all around scamp is a New York fixture; he turns up, in different venues, three or four times each season. His Birdland engagements usually seem more relaxed and less structured, just a bunch of tiptop jazz guys making music. Pizzarelli will be at the legendary spot on West 44th for nine shows, July 22–26.

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54 Below heads its schedule with a true Independence Day celebration — not on the Fourth of July, but with twi-night double-headers on the third and fifth. The 54 Sings series, comprised of programs dedicated to scores from favorite musicals, gives us Sherman Edwards's grand 1776. Here's a way to share the fireworks as John Adams, Ben Franklin and a violin-playing young Tom Jefferson rally the Continental Congress to vote "yes" for independence. (Spoiler alert: In the end, they manage to convince the "cool conservative men" to sign the Declaration and get it over with.)